


Nobody Else But Me

by cleverqueen



Series: Coldwave Week 2017 [6]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV)
Genre: 5+1 Things, Codependency, ColdWave Week 2017, Episode: s01e13 Leviathan, Episode: s02e15 Fellowship of the Spear, Jealousy, M/M, Obsessive Behavior, POV Mick Rory, Swearing, jealous!mick
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-28
Updated: 2017-10-28
Packaged: 2019-01-25 19:42:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,620
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12539700
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cleverqueen/pseuds/cleverqueen
Summary: Day 6: JealousyOnce, Mick’s psychiatrist wanted to talk about his and Len’s co-dependent behavior. Mick lit her office on fire and got another psychiatrist who was more interested in staying flame-free. Maybe that was a bad idea.(Rating is for swearing. So much swearing. Also, one guy gets his brains blown out.)





	Nobody Else But Me

**Author's Note:**

> You don’t even know how much I love jealousy in fic. (Maybe because I get weirdly jealous of my SO. Hot people all around? No problem. Coffee with exes? Whatever. Nurses doing their jobs and palpating my baby’s shoulders in the hospital? GREEN-EYED RAGE.)
> 
> More on-topic: Part 2 of this 5+1 could stand on its own as a short story. It’s four times the length of the other sections. It has a character arc. I could’ve stopped writing and scrapped my plan for a 5+1. Obviously, I didn’t. But you can handle it. More fic!

**5\. Juvie**

Mick liked being the biggest kid in the detention yard. He liked the way everyone avoided him. He liked the quiet. He liked the whispers when they told each other he was a psycho, a murderer, and a cannibal.

Once, he he’d been hurt by the rumors about him. Now, he thrived on them. Yeah, that’s right; he _was_ psycho, and you’d better stay out of a psycho’s way. Yeah, he was a murderer, and his ghosts kept him company everywhere he went, like it or not. Yeah, no, he wasn’t a cannibal, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t bite your nose off if you got too close.

When he got a new cellie—younger, smaller, with squinty eyes and quick fingers—he didn’t give it much thought. Snart was just like everybody else in juvie. The kid largely ignored him, paying attention only to stay out of Mick’s way. Just how Mick liked it.

Things changed on the new kid’s second day though. They were all out in the yard, the smell of rotting autumn leaves barely noticeable over the sweat-stench of dozens of teenaged boys crammed together. Slanting sunlight made Mick blink, but it didn’t keep him from seeing his cellie’s trouble.

Four boys surrounded Snart, three of them bigger and all of them meaner. They kicked and punched until red blood and a loose tooth hit the dirt yard. Mick figured the fight would be over then. If nothing else, a corrections officer should come by to break it up.

But the boys kept hitting... and no corrections officers came over. More blood mixed with the tooth on the ground, and Mick growled. That was _his_ cellie, damn it. Snart was _his_ to break or protect. Who did these guys think they were?

Mick’s neck grew hot, like he’d leaned too close to a furious fire. Those boys knew not to mess with Mick. They _knew!_ , but they’d pounced on his cellie anyway. Did they think he wouldn’t notice? 

A shiv flashed out of the meanest one’s pocket, and Mick roared his anger. At the sound, all the yard’s games flashed to a nervous halt. Except for the fucking four guys who thought they could get away with touching Mick’s cell mate.

Mick roared again and barreled into the scumbags. He threw his fists into faces and plunged knees into stomachs. His blood rushed in his ears as he tossed his opponents onto the bloody ground again and again and again—

Until three corrections officers pulled him back with promises of solitary.

Lounging on the cold dirt like he’d flopped there himself, Snart squinted up at Mick, mouth frowning. A calculating look darkened his slivered eyes. Mick spat on the ground next to a CO’s shoe, clearing out blood and earning a baton in the gut. 

“Mine,” Mick mouthed.

Snart nodded, eyebrows going up in the “aha” kind of way. He saluted as Mick got dragged away.

* * *

**4\. Santini Jr.**

Mick knew his place in this tableau: he was The Muscle to Len’s faux-Don. He hovered behind the red-leather booth in the clichéd Italian restaurant. Arms crossed in front of him and hair trimmed too short to grab, Mick looked just like the Santini scion’s own two bodyguards.

Damn it. So much basil and fried beef smell in the air, and Mick didn’t get to eat any of it. The spaghetti in front of Len was just going to get wasted. Mick swallowed back saliva and glared at the goons who glared right back at him.

Fine, so Len wanted them to strike out on their own a bit now that he’d moved out of his dad’s place, but did they _have_ to work with the Families first thing? And with this Santini schmuck who kept eyeing Len like maybe Mick’s partner was tastier than the all-beef meatballs he wasn’t eating. Fucker. Mick ground his teeth till his jaw twitched, which he knew made him look even more unhinged.

The little Santini didn’t get Mick’s body-language message. He wasn’t even looking at the bodyguards’ area.

No, his attention was all for Len and Len’s bizarrely tempting curls, grown-out to spite everyone who told him they’d be a handle in a fist-fight. This was how it should have been. Mick should have been happy, not murderous. So he counted his breaths the way his court-appointed therapist had once suggested and only _watched._

Santini, Jr. murmured something, and Len smiled at him. It was his mark-gobbling smile. The one that sucked in the suckers and meant he was pleased by said sucker’s gullibility. Len made a circle with his wrist, then opened his hand palm-up to display a massive sapphire. _You’re not a fucking stage magician, Snart._ But Len loved his theatrics, and they’d been getting the job done so far, so Mick suppressed a sigh.

Santini leaned forward and plucked up the gem with one hand—like he was supposed to; bait and _hook_ —but his other hand rested on top of Len’s and stroked down his lifeline with idle fingers.

Len stiffened, then relaxed all his muscles into a languorous sprawl that was so fake Mick couldn’t look at it without wincing. Mick’s lips pressed together hard. Keeping the boss safely comfortable was what a bodyguard was _for,_ right?

Mick surged forward, faster than the complacent goons could intercept, and slammed his fist into the table. Santini jumped backwards, sapphire flying up in the air. Clanking water glasses rocked and sloshed into the spaghetti and meatballs. Len leaned back, behind Mick’s intimidating presence and out of Santini’s reach, expression much calmer and more real that it had been moments previously.

The goons pulled out pistols. The sapphire plinked down onto the tabletop.

Mick said, “Nobody touches the boss.”

Everyone nodded. The guns disappeared back into their holsters. 

Santini’s voice wobbled when he said, “We have a deal then.”

Len tilted his head in acknowledgement. “I’d shake your hand,” he drawled, and then gestured to Mick as if to imply that his bodyguard would be terribly upset if they made skin contact right now.

Santini giggled, a little hysterical. “Of course, of course. I’ll be in touch.”

Len slid out of the booth and sashayed toward the door, not looking back. That was Mick’s job, and Mick gave everyone a final glare before joining Len on the sidewalk.

Mick’s neck was already pinking up with embarrassed blood. Len had every right to tear into him the second they were out of earshot. But Len just bumped their shoulders together—friendly-like—and said, “Looks like we’ve got a good thing going with the Santinis.”

A whoosh of relieved air, and Mick’s heartrate slowed. He wasn’t so sure the littlest Santini would be good for business. Not just because the older Santinis knew nothing about their new arrangement, but because he’d _touched Len._ That was not all right. The flush that had moments ago subsided from Mick’s neck rose again, an angry vermillion that licked his skin like a bonfire.

Mick liked bonfires. So he pushed hotter, riled himself a little more just thinking about Len’s uncomfortable posture, about people who thought they had the right to approach him. Well, Len wasn’t too upset about the new _no touching_ rule, then maybe he wouldn’t mind taking it further.

“I don’t want you to talk to anybody,” Mick said. His own eyes widened, like he couldn’t believe he’d said it. He growled a bit before continuing, doubling down. “Don’t want you to _touch_ anybody till I say it’s okay.” 

And then he held his breath, because maybe he’d gone too far, and this was when Len would put his foot down.

Len knocked their shoulders together again. “Okay,” he said.

Mick ground to a brief halt and had to scurry to catch up. _What?_ Agreeing to something like that could not be normal. “What do you mean ‘okay’?”

Len turned his head to look Mick in the eye, still walking straight ahead. _Is he watching his step out of the corner of his eye, or does he expect me to catch him?_ “It sounds relaxing,” he said. “It’ll be nice not to fake a smile or pretend I don’t mind when someone grips my shoulder.”

Mick grinned, wider and muscle-stretching. That _friendly solidarity_ from strangers wore on Len, he knew, almost as much as it fired up Mick’s blood. Len was _his_ , damn it. And no one else had the right to touch. To talk. To take his attention. He knew it sounded a little obsessive, but (so long as Len was okay with it) this could work for them, right?

***

When they got back to their apartment, Mick practically shoved Len into his room. No one was getting to Len in there. No one could find him and make him do anything.

No one but Mick.

Len just chuckled and pulled a paperback off his nightstand. He opened to his bookmark in _Good Omens_ and settled his back against the wall. 

Mick had to check one more time. “You good here?” he asked.

“For now.” Len waved an imperious hand in the air, and Mick let himself be dismissed. After all, he had Len’s favorite takeout to order for dinner.

***

While Mick waited on the Chinese delivery and Len did who-knew-what in his room, the building’s superintendent knocked at their door.

She was a wrinkled woman who wore floral dresses and spoke with an unidentifiable accent. She usually had a rag in her hands when Mick saw her, but tonight she’d cleaned up. Her dress was pressed and unfaded—black background with pink roses and lace trim—and she smelled more of jasmine perfume than cooking spices.

The smile on her face turned into a scowl when she saw Mick. “Where is Leonard?” she demanded.

Mick had never actually spoken with the super, just dodged out of her way or held doors for her. “He’s not available.” He couldn’t help the smugness that crept into his voice. _Yeah, that’s right. Len’s not available for anybody but me._ He schooled his features into an appropriately apologetic frown. Len would never let him hear the end of it if he alienated her.

“Leonard’s name is on the lease. I have to speak with him.” She peered around Mick as if she might find Len sitting on the couch, maybe tied up to prove that Mick was a horrible person who controlled his roommate. 

Which, he kind of was, but not in a horrible way. “You’ve seen me around. You can talk to me,” Mick tried to reason with her.

She blew out a heavy breath, making sure he knew that this was a serious imposition. “Fine. You tell him, the water heater will be out tomorrow. From early morning until 7 p.m. Maybe longer.”

Mick grimly held on to his apologetically remorseful facial expression. “I’ll let him know,” Mick assured her. “Anything else?” _Please, don’t let there be anything else._

“You also tell him to come see me. I have pictures for him.”

Mick nodded, too slow to be polite. “Right.” 

“Hmph,” she said. And then she spun on her polished heel and stalked off down the hallway.

Mick closed the door and leaned against it, glad to be done with the encounter. “She didn’t even say goodbye.” No wonder Len dealt with her on their joint behalf. Only one of them was good at pretending, and it wasn’t Mick. Most of the time, he was proud to be a hothead. It was his nature to say what he felt, and people knew where they stood with him. In some situations, though, he had to admit that the civility his mother had tried to drum into him had its place in oiling social wheels.

Mick straightened. He had a job to do. He’d said he was going to do a thing (namely: communicated the super’s words), and he was _going_ to do it. Besides, he wanted to see what Len was up to.

He knocked on Len’s door and waited for a count of three before letting himself in. _Maybe Len didn’t want to say ‘come in’ in case someone was with me._ The thought thrilled him, made a frisson of heat run up his spine. It had only been an hour, but this was going to work out. “That was the super,” Mick said. 

Len lay on his bed, right where Mick had left him. He looked up from his book, expression curious and eyes alight with excitement. It must’ve been a good book. 

Well, Mick wouldn’t keep him too long. Just long enough to deliver his message. “Water’s gonna be cold tomorrow, and she has pictures.” Mick paused, waited for Len to ask why Mick didn’t come get him, but Len didn’t say a thing. “She doesn’t get to talk to you till I say.”

Len smirked at him, but it was a happy smirk, the kind that made his right dimple come out. (Mick knew the difference.) Len put a bookmark in _Good Omens_ and set it back on the nightstand. “Thank goodness,” he said. “She always wants to set me up with her daughter.”

Mick teeth ground together, and he found himself suddenly next to Len on the bed, protecting him from anyone who might come through the door and demand his attention. Len was _taken_ , damn it. Mick crowded him back tighter against the wall. “Not while I’m here.”

Len’s posture didn’t change. His inhales and exhales stayed even, like Mick being in his space didn’t distress him at all. “And I have to smile and make polite noises to keep our rent down,” he continued his complaints against the super.

Mick leaned in closer, still not touching. “I don’t,” he said.

Len gave him a real smile at that, something small and true. “No, you don’t,” he agreed.

That expression, that faith in Mick’s unfailing honesty... it made his breath catch. Len was so fragile like this, deceptively so. He was Mick’s to look after. 

Mick bit his lip. Len’s head tilted back, pushing against the wall, and opening up his vulnerable neck to attack. The move made his mouth closer. It would be nothing to cross the tiny gap between them, no effort at all to press their lips together. Their first kiss, the one he hadn’t been sure Len would want.

Mick’s heart raced. He was going to do it. He was going to make this final declaration with his body instead of his words, and Len was going to accept him. He could feel it in his bones, in his blood, in the fire overtaking his brain. Alarms screamed, just like they would for a real fire, and Mick heard approval in their peals.

No. Wait. That wasn’t a fire alarm. It was the doorbell.

Mick pulled back, losing the heat of Len’s body. Creating distance where there should be none. “I’ll go see who it is,” he said. His voice was a quiet whisper. He didn’t think he could be any louder in this intimate space.

When Mick got to the door, Len finally replied. “You do that,” he said. He was buried in his book again, as though he’d never been disturbed, but his breathing came quicker and he was twining a curl around his finger. Nervous, flirty, even if he wasn’t looking at Mick.

Yeah, Mick was definitely a lucky man to have Len locked up in his apartment/tower/whatever.

Mick closed Len’s door and buzzed up the guy from the Chinese delivery place. Once the guy cleared out, Mick called Len to the dining table. (Len insisted on eating at the table instead of in front of the TV like normal people. Something about setting good examples and being aware of food.) 

In the dining room’s halogen lights, Len still looked soft and approachable. Mick didn’t reach for him, just served his soup, but he knew it was a matter of time. Mick could be patient when he had to be. He could wait.

***

They’d just finished the hot and sour soup that Len adored and Mick complained was too spicy (which made Len laugh every time), when a knock came at their door. Shave and a haircut, only one bit. Len perked up, leaning towards the front room, because only one regular visitor did that cute little number. 

But Mick hustled him back into his room. “Just until I can explain to Lisa what’s going on,” he said before Len could protest.

And Len _did_ look ready to protest. Mick was sure he wanted to say _not even my sister???_ To which Mick knew the answer. 

“Nobody but me,” Mick said, growling to seal in his seriousness.

Miracle of miracles, Len’s mulish expression gentled again. His eyes went soft and fond, and his lips curled ever so slightly. “I suppose having any exceptions weakens the point.”

“Thank you,” Mick said, but it was breathless, not as strong as he wanted to sound.

Len let himself be locked up while Mick let Lisa in. If Lisa really protested, though, Mick knew Len wouldn’t go along much longer. If anyone could break Mick’s hold on Len’s body and his tongue, it was Len’s baby sister. So, after he’d explained, anxiety clawed at his lungs while Lisa hummed and thought the situation over. She could destroy this fragile peace he’d built for him and Len, and he hated her for that. He curled his hands into fists, wishing he could punch himself for hating Len’s sister. Wishing he could punch her for coming too early into the unsettled circumstances.

“Yeah, okay,” Lisa said with a shrug. “Can we watch _The Little Mermaid_?”

“Sure,” said Mick, voice a little strangled with all the pent up rage that had nowhere to go. “You want some Chinese?”

“Nah.”

So he made plates for him and Len and knocked on Len’s door while Lisa sat in the plush chair that Len usually took for his own. She pretended to be enthralled with the FBI warnings when her brother curled his legs onto the couch and took his dinner. (Breaking the dinner table rule? All rules got broken if Lisa needed them to be, except Mick’s apparently.)

Mick dropped down next to him at the beginning, took both their plates to the kitchen while Ursula sang the best song in the whole movie, and returned to see the siblings still studiously watching the film. Ignoring each other. They’d kept to the letter and the spirit of Mick’s stipulations. This was enough togetherness for them. Damn, but Mick loved every Snart (except Lewis).

Len reached out and grabbed Mick’s wrist, pulled him back down. Mick’s heart hammered when Len adjusted them both until Len’s head rested on Mick’s thigh and Mick’s feet were up on the coffee table the way he usually liked to have them. 

From that point on, Mick barely paid attention to the movie. Well, he’d seen it a million times with Lisa since it came out on tape anyway. Instead, he held himself too still. His quads were too tight. About the time Ariel and the Prince came to a romantic understanding, his legs gave trembling way. Len cuddled in closer and dragged one of Mick’s hands to card through his curls. The man was an oversized cat when it came to touching people he trusted. 

Mick had never been the one to play with his hair before. Usually that was Lisa.

At the end of the movie, Lisa rewound the tape, and Len pushed up to whisper in Mick’s ear. His breath was warm, his lips so close to Mick’s skin. “Remember that present we got for her.” _We_ , not _I._

Obligingly, Mick went into the kitchen where he opened the coupon drawer and took out the diamond tennis bracelet they’d stolen. He also put a turkey sandwich and apple into a paper bag for her lunch the next day.

Lisa took both of these gifts with much cooing. Then she hugged Mick goodbye and waved to Len.

Len didn’t acknowledge her at all, though they all knew he’d seen her. That was more than Mick would have hoped for, for Len to eschew all methods of communication with his sister. 

Lisa just smiled at them both, understanding and accepting. “See you tomorrow!” she called.

And then they were alone.

Silence. No one but them. No demands to navigate. No people who wanted their time. And Len, perfect Len, hadn’t tried even once to avoid the stipulations. 

“Thank you,” Mick breathed.

Len smiled again, that real smile that made Mick want to protect him and kiss him and destroy anyone who came near him. “Thank _you_ ,” he replied.

* * *

**3\. The Replacements**

Mick threw open the door to Snart’s bedroom, red in the face from climbing twelve stories only to find _this_. “What the fuck?” he roared. His left hand spanned the neck of the twenty-something kid who’d been lounging on the couch, and Mick shook the guy for good measure. “His feet were on the coffee table!” Snart had been fuckin’ overprotective of that coffee table since he’d stolen it from an antique shop in SoDo. _Mick_ had certainly never been allowed to put feet on it, shoes or socks.

Mick’s eyes roved over the room from corner to corner. Wall-to-wall carpet. Too much stuff on the secretary’s desk in the corner. Snart stretched out on the king sized bed, crossways, with his head in some guy’s lap. Getting a head massage.

“What the fuck?” Mick said again, but softer this time. Almost a whisper. He threw the kid in his hand onto the bed where he bounced behind Snart. _Useless muscle, he is._ Or maybe the smart kind that knew not to get in the middle of a personal argument.

Snart didn’t get out of the cranial hold. Laid there like his comfort was the only thing going on right now. Like he wasn’t sending a hundred different messages and all of them spelling the end.

“Hey, Mick,” Snart said, casual.

Mick felt his teeth grinding and his ears getting hot all over again. “Don’t you ‘hey Mick’ me, buddy.”

Snart sighed and put a dramatic hand over his eyes. “What do you want me to say, Mick?” Was he really going to make Mick _ask_ him to dissolve their partnership? “I don’t know what you expected.”

Mick’s heart froze, chill seeping through his bones like he could never light a fire again, just yearn for it until his mind screamed in its cage. This was worse than prison. At least Snart had visited him in prison. He’d done his nickel in Iron Heights, and Snart had come by every other week with gossip and cash. Mick certainly hadn’t expected to get out only to find a muscle-head with his feet on the coffee table and a cutie giving head massages in bed. 

Mick leaned back against the door jamb, sure it was the only thing keeping him up. He didn’t want to know, but at this point he had nothing to lose. He had to make sure. “You replacing me?” he asked. 

“Hey, man,” croaked the kid Mick had choked out. “I’m just the muscle.” Implying that the other guy was the only one who deserved Mick’s jealousy?

Snart _did_ sit up then, leaning forward and resting his chin in his steepled hands. “You’re the one who told me to keep running jobs till you got out. I had Lisa to feed.” He arched a wry eyebrow. “And you took my cash easy enough.”

The head-massage cutie took advantage of his freedom to skirt past Mick and escape into the living room. Mick couldn’t blame him, except for how he’d had hands all over Snart. “You running around on me?” he breathed. Somehow, he couldn’t get enough air to make his words sound stronger, sound accusatory. All he had left was a cold certainty that the answer was _yes._

Snart got off the bed then and fixed Mick was the kind of unimpressed look he reserved for shoe salesmen who couldn’t convert from European sizes to American. “No. I’m waiting for you.”

Mick settled more firmly against the door jamb, legs cooperating this time to block off the exit. Snart didn’t get to leave until they’d hashed this out. “Looks like the stand-ins are doing okay,” he said. A twist of his wrist implied the follow up _and I don’t like it so I’m gonna put an end to this unless you tell me otherwise._

Len rolled his eyes and came forward to rest his exasperated head on Mick’s shoulder, tacit permission to do whatever. “They’re just keeping your place warm for you.”

Mick held himself perfectly still with utter willpower; this was the first nonviolent contact he’d had in too long, and it was Len. Len with his perfect posture and recently buzzed hair. Were those grey strands on the top?

“Geeze, guys,” said the choked kid, whose voice had come back stronger and lower-pitched than Mick would’ve thought. “At least wait until I leave the room before you make out.”

Mick smirked. _Making out, huh?_ “Now that’s a good idea,” he said. He put a hand on Len’s waist and slid it under the ridiculous sweater to grip the handgun Mick knew was there.

The kid’s loud scoff was the last sound he got to make before his brains went flying, painting the boring beige walls in pink and grey.

Len pressed clean-shaven lips to Mick’s under-chin scruff. “A good idea, indeed. One might even say he was the _brains_ of this outfit.”

Mick groaned. One thing he hadn’t missed in the clink? The terrible puns. 

Len cackled into his pecking kisses. “ _Lobe_ me, _lobe_ my puns.”

Mick smiled and pulled his partner closer. Into Len’s ear he whispered, “That’s a no-brainer.”

It was good to be home.

* * *

**2\. Sara Lance**

Mick didn’t like the way Len’s eyes followed their new friend while she danced to Captain and Tennille. He didn’t like the way she offered him her body and her time. 

By the end of the week, he also didn’t like the way she played cards. He didn’t like the skin-tight white outfit (which somehow repelled dirt, making her shine like an angel).

Len tried to bring him around to her. Len pointed out she was their kind of violent. He invited Mick to a poker tournament with her. 

Mick hated every second, even as he tipped his beer bottle and made sure to include her in whatever teams Rip broke them into. But “Criminal Trio” wasn’t in Mick’s blood, and if Lance kept pushing, she was going to find out what happened to people who tried to muscle into their partnership.

“You want to lock me in our room?” Len offered after 2046. After he’d _knocked Mick out_. 

Also after he’d spent his time knocking Mick out instead of backing up Lance, so Mick could forgive him for that transgression at least. “Nah,” he said. 

And then Len was siding with her, with the Legends, with everyone. And then Len _left_ him, and that was the worst thing of all.

Next time Mick saw that little bird, he was going to tear off her wings and make her pay.

* * *

**1\. Cassandra (and the White Fucking Canary again)**

Mick still wasn’t sure where he was half the time. When he was or who he was supposed to be. But right now was the _other_ half of the time.

Now, he knew exactly what he was doing. He was Len’s partner, and they’d come to steal from a mark (Savage), to con a fool (Savage’s daughter), and to set the world on fire before they left. It wasn’t quite the same as it used to be, but it was close.

Mick and Len had made their peace. They’d found common ground in Mick’s swirling memories and their combined, newly established goals. Just being at Len’s side gave him a calm he hadn’t felt in decades, centuries, millennia. And it hadn’t taken a fresh induction to quiet his mind.

But after they’d moved in synch, after they’d shared emotions and perspectives, after all that, Len’s focus left Mick. Left Mick, and turned to the mark.

She was a pretty thing. Cassandra. And she took all Len’s attention. Len gave her his childhood secrets, let her soothe his pain so that he could soothe hers in turn. It was bonding. It was the start of a good grift.

It made Mick’s fists clench and Kronos’ analytical side calculate the number of ways to kill her. When she put a tentative hand on Len’s forearm, Mick almost acted on method #4 (boot-dagger to the heart).

But no. He was good. He was a team player. He was Len’s partner, and he backed Len’s plays. So he watched the door and stayed out of the way and knew he’d be Len’s everything again once they left this attention-hog behind. Or else there’d be the Vanishing Point to pay.

***

It should’ve been easy. They’d used Cassandra and left her behind with the resistance, and all _should_ have been right in Mick’s world. But it wasn’t, because he _still_ didn’t have Len’s undivided attention. Apparently, there were plans to be made and people to jokingly mock. And there was the fucking _White Canary_ playing cards and organizing physical therapy for Len’s new wrist.

_No more!_

Mick slammed his hand down on the steel kitchen counter. The room was mostly empty, save for Ray who jumped satisfyingly at the clanging reverberations.

“Ah, Mick, buddy,” Ray stuttered between nervous laughs, “you okay?”

“Peachy,” Mick replied.

Ray wasn’t the emotionally smartest man on the ship. “You don’t sound it,” he needled.

“You have a safe deposit box?” Mick asked.

“If I answer that, are you going to break into it? Because I’d rather you didn’t.”

Mick hummed. “Me neither.” There was only one thing he’d ever needed to lock away for safekeeping, and he’d rather no one broke in either.

“What?” Ray asked, utterly bewildered.

Mick didn’t reply, already out the door.

***

He found Len and the Canary in the cargo hold. Len sprawled enticingly against a blue-grey wall, and Blondie sitting on a ladder that let her point her toes oh so prettily. It could’ve been accidental, but Mick didn’t think it was. She wanted what was his.

She wouldn’t get it.

Mick stomped into the room hard enough to rattle the Canary’s seat. He wasn’t going to apologize for it. “Game’s over,” he said.

Mick reached an arm down, and Len lifted his own to meet it, letting Mick grasp his forearm and drag him to his feet. 

Canary tilted her head back, exposing a throat both long and smooth. They all knew it wasn’t a vulnerable position for her, so it had to be a sexy one. 

Mick shoved Len out into the corridor. “Mine,” he spat back into the room.

Canary lifted her hands in the universal gesture of surrender, but Mick could see the duplicity in her eyes. She’d bide her time and then try to bundle Len out from under him.

She wouldn’t succeed. An assassin could only do so much against a seasoned crook. 

Len let himself be hurried along to their room, not a word of protest.

“I’ll be back,” Mick said after he threw Len onto their shared bed. He couldn’t be here right now. He’d do something stupid in his anger. He’d never raised a hand to Len that wasn’t deserved or Kronos-sent. He wasn’t going to start now. 

Len just waved him off, looking somewhere between content and bored. “Gideon, pull up—” he started.

That caught Mick back in the web. “Not Gideon either.”

Len didn’t even raise an eyebrow. He nodded and reached into the drawer beneath the bed. Mick stayed to watch while he read the first few pages of a digital book. It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Len, he just needed to know for sure. No encroachments in this territory. 

When Len said, “Bring me back some M&M’s,” calm in his captivity, something in Mick’s neck relaxed. It carried that untensing all the way down to his stomach.

“Yeah, okay,” Mick agreed. He’d bring back M&M’s and affection, and all would be well between them again. Forever. Partners. Like they should always be.

* * *

**+1. The One Time Mick Wasn’t Jealous**

Len sneered at the Legends. The cold gun in his hand looked almost real, thick and heavy with its true-ness. “Pretty pathetic if you ask me,” Len said.

No, not Len. It was just Mick’s mind playing tricks again. He’d lived so long with a fussy sidekick that he didn’t know how to break the habit. _Not to think ill of the dead, but stop haunting me, buddy._

Rip’s jaw worked, and Mick turned gratefully to look at the Englishman. He was going to say something stupid that would get everyone back on course, and then Mick could drink away the memory of Len’s disappointment.

Rip said, “Mr. Snart?”

Mick’s stomach swooped into his chest with a nauseating lightness. He’d like to blame the hangover coming early, but: “Wait... you can see him?”

“You’re supposed to be dead,” said Ray.

And Mick didn’t even care. Haircut could demand attention and answers from Len all he wanted. Canary could kiss him. The Professor could run tests that required electrodes stuck to Len’s naked chest, even. All that mattered was that Len had come home. Mick knew his place. It was at Len’s side, and now that Len was back, he had nowhere else he needed to be.

**Author's Note:**

> The +1 was originally intended to be Len getting jealous. At first it was going to be his jealousy over Amaya. Then I was thinking maybe jealousy over Legion!Len. But I was having too much fun in Mick’s obsessive/jealous head, and—really—Mick’s reaction to Legion!Len was too good to pass up.
> 
> Tracking - When I decided to do Coldwave Week, I foolishly declared I’d try to write a short story a day. (My SO immediately laughed. Which was totally fair really.) Here’s how the timing stands so far:  
> * Finished first story draft on 8/27 (from 8/24). So, not making the whole week thing.  
> * Finished second story draft on 9/8. Yeah.... the SO was definitely right.  
> * Finished third story draft on 9/8. If only I could keep up this pace.  
> * Finished fourth story draft on 9/9.  
> * Finished fifth story draft on 9/20.  
> * Finished sixth story draft on 10/19. It’s not that long! Why did it take a month? Well, there was the two week break for family things...


End file.
